Alien Archives, page 17
And so I unwittingly touched off a publishing revolution.
By the 18th of October Harlan had sold the book to Doubleday and was soliciting stories far and wide. Requests for material—material of the boldest, most uncompromising kind—went out to the likes of Theodore Sturgeon, Frederik Pohl, Poul Anderson, Philip K. Dick, Philip Jose Farmer, Fritz Leiber, J.G. Ballard, Norman Spinrad, Brian Aldiss, Lester del Rey, Larry Niven, R.A. Lafferty, John Brunner, Roger Zelazny, and Samuel R. Delany. Dick, Pohl, Sturgeon, Anderson, del Rey, Farmer, Brunner, Aldiss, and Leiber were well-established authors, but the work of Ballard, Zelazny, Delany, Niven, and Spinrad, believe it or not, was only just beginning to be known in the United States in 1965. Harlan’s eye for innovative talent had always been formidably keen.
As the accidental instigator of the whole thing—and the quickest man with an s-f story since Henry Kuttner in his prime—I sat down right away and wrote the very first dangerous vision, “Flies,” in November of 1965, just as soon as Harlan told me the deal was set. It was about as dangerous as I could manage: a demonstration of the random viciousness of the universe and the alien beings that might inhabit it, and a little blasphemy on the side. (I would return to both these themes again and again in the years ahead: my novel Thorns of 1966 was essentially a recasting of the underlying material of “Flies” at greater length.) Back at once came Harlan’s check for $88.
Which was the first of many, for Dangerous Visions would turn out to be the most significant s-f anthology of the decade, destined to go through edition after edition. (It is back in print yet again, years after its first publication.) All of the extraordinary writers whose names I rattled off above came through with brilliant stories, along with fifteen or twenty others, some well-known at the time but forgotten now, some obscure then and still obscure, but all of them fiercely determined to live up to Harlan’s demand for the kind of stories that other s-f editors would consider too hot to handle.
Dangerous Visions appeared in 1967. “An event,” said The New York Times, “a jubilee of fresh ideas . . .what we mean when we say an important book.” Its success led to the publication of an immense companion volume in 1972, Again, Dangerous Visions—760 pages of stories by writers who hadn’t contributed to the first book (Ursula K. Le Guin, Gene Wolfe, Kurt Vonnegut, Gregory Benford, James Tiptree, Jr. . . .) And ultimately Harlan began to assemble the mammoth third book in the series, The Last Dangerous Visions, which he never managed to complete before his death in 2018.
I knew not what I was setting in motion with my casual postscript of October 2, 1965, suggesting that Harlan edit an anthology. Certainly I had no idea that I was nudging him toward one of the great enterprises of his career. Nor did I suspect that my own 4400-word contribution to the book would open a new and darker phase of my own career—in which, ultimately, almost everything I wrote would become a dangerous vision of sorts.
HERE IS CASSIDAY:
transfixed on a table.
There wasn’t much left of him. A brain-box; a few ropes of nerves; a limb. The sudden implosion had taken care of the rest. There was enough, though. The golden ones didn’t need much to go by. They had found him in the wreckage of the drifting ship as it passed through their zone, back of Iapetus. He was alive. He could be repaired. The others on the ship were beyond hope.
Repair him? Of course. Did one need to be human in order to be humanitarian? Repair, yes. By all means. And change. The golden ones were creative.
What was left of Cassiday lay in drydock on a somewhere table in a golden sphere of force. There was no change of season here; only the sheen of the walls, the unvarying warmth. Neither day nor night, neither yesterday nor tomorrow. Shapes came and went about him. They were regenerating him, stage by stage, as he lay in complete unthinking tranquility. The brain was intact but not functioning. The rest of the man was growing back: tendon and ligament, bone and blood, heart and elbows. Elongated mounds of tissue sprouted tiny buds that enlarged into blobs of flesh. Paste cell to cell together, build a man from his own wreckage—that was no chore for the golden ones. They had their skills. But they had much to learn too, and this Cassiday could help them learn it.
Day by day Cassiday grew toward wholeness. They did not awaken him. He lay cradled in warmth, unmoving, unthinking, drifting on the tide. His new flesh was pink and smooth, like a baby’s. The epithelial thickening came a little later. Cassiday served as his own blueprint. The golden ones replicated him from a shred of himself, built him back from his own polynucleotide chains, decoded the proteins and reassembled him from the template. An easy task, for them. Why not? Any blob of protoplasm could do it—for itself. The golden ones, who were not protoplasm, could do it for others.
They made some changes in the template. Of course. They were craftsmen. And there was a good deal they wanted to learn.
***
LOOK AT CASSIDAY:
the dossier.
BORN 1 August 2316
PLACE Nyack, New York
PARENTS Various
ECONOMIC LEVEL Low
EDUCATIONAL LEVEL Middle
OCCUPATION Fuel technician
MARITAL STATUS Three legal liaisons, duration eight months, sixteen months, and two months
HEIGHT Two meters
WEIGHT 96 kg
HAIR COLOR Yellow
EYES Blue
BLOOD TYPE A +
INTELLIGENCE LEVEL High
SEXUAL, INCLINATIONS Normal
***
WATCH THEM NOW:
changing him.
The complete man lay before them, newly minted, ready for rebirth. Now came the final adjustments. They sought the gray brain within its pink wrapper, and entered it, and traveled through the bays and inlets of the mind, pausing now at this quiet cove, dropping anchor now at the base of that slab-sided cliff. They were operating, but doing it neatly. Here were no submucous resections, no glittering blades carving through gristle and bone, no sizzling lasers at work, no clumsy hammering at the tender meninges. Cold steel did not slash the synapses. The golden ones were subtler; they tuned the circuit that was Cassiday, boosted the gain, damped out the noise, and they did it very gently.
When they were finished with him, he was much more sensitive. He had several new hungers. They had granted him certain abilities.
Now they awakened him.
“You are alive, Cassiday,” a feathery voice said. “Your ship was destroyed. Your companions were killed. You alone survived.”
“Which hospital is this?”
“Not on Earth. You’ll be going back soon. Stand up, Cassiday. Move your right hand. Your left. Flex your knees. Inflate your lungs. Open and close your eyes several times. What’s your name, Cassiday?”
“Richard Henry Cassiday.”
“How old?”
“Forty-one.”
“Look at this reflection. Who do you see?”
“Myself.”
“Do you have any further questions?”
“What did you do to me?”
“Repaired you, Cassiday. You were almost entirely destroyed.”
“Did you change me any?”
“We made you more sensitive to the feelings of your fellow man.”
“Oh,” said Cassiday.
***
FOLLOW CASSIDAY AS HE JOURNEYS:
back to Earth.
He arrived on a day that had been programmed for snow. Light snow, quickly melting, an esthetic treat rather than a true manifestation of weather. It was good to touch foot on the homeworld again. The golden ones had deftly arranged his return, putting him back aboard his wrecked ship and giving him enough of a push to get him within range of a distress sweep. The monitors had detected him and picked him up. How was it you survived the disaster unscathed, Spaceman Cassiday? Very simple, sir, I was outside the ship when it happened. It just went swoosh, and everybody was killed. And I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
They routed him to Mars and checked him out, and held him awhile in a decontamination lock on Luna, and finally sent him back to Earth. He stepped into the snowstorm, a big man with a rolling gait and careful calluses in all the right places. He had few friends, no relatives, enough cash units to see him through for a while, and a couple of ex-wives he could look up. Under the rules, he was entitled to a year off with full pay as his disaster allotment. He intended to accept the furlough.
He had not yet begun to make use of his new sensitivity. The golden ones had planned it so that his abilities would remain inoperative until he reached the homeworld. Now he had arrived, and it was time to begin using them, and the endlessly curious creatures who lived back of Iapetus waited patiently while Cassiday sought out those who had once loved him.
He began his quest in Chicago Urban District, because that was where the spaceport was, just outside of Rockford. The slidewalk took him quickly to the travertine tower, festooned with radiant inlays of ebony and violet-hued metal, and there, at the local Televector Central, Cassiday checked out the present whereabouts of his former wives. He was patient about it, a bland-faced, mild-eyed tower of flesh, pushing the right buttons and waiting placidly for the silken contacts to close somewhere in the depths of the Earth. Cassiday had never been a violent man. He was calm. He knew how to wait.
The machine told him that Beryl Fraser Cassiday Mellon lived in Boston Urban District. The machine told him that Lureen Holstein Cassiday lived in New York Urban District. The machine told him that Mirabel Gunryk Cassiday Milman Reed lived in San Francisco Urban District.
The names awakened memories: warmth of flesh, scent of hair, touch of hand, sound of voice. Whispers of passion. Snarls of contempt. Gasps of love.
Cassiday, restored to life, went to see his ex-wives.
***
WE FIND ONE NOW:
safe and sound.
Beryl’s eyes were milky in the pupil, greenish where they should have been white. She had lost weight in the last ten years, and now her face was parchment stretched over bone, an eroded face, the cheekbones pressing from within against the taut skin and likely to snap through at any moment. Cassiday had been married to her for eight months when he was twenty-four. They had separated after she insisted on taking the Sterility pledge. He had not particularly wanted children, but he was offended by her maneuver all the same. Now she lay in a soothing cradle of webfoam, trying to smile at him without cracking her lips.
“They said you’d been killed,” she told him.
“I escaped. How have you been, Beryl?”
“You can see that. I’m taking the cure.”
“Cure?”
“I was a triline addict. Can’t you see? My eyes, my face? It melted me away. But it was peaceful. Like disconnecting your soul. Only it would have killed me, another year of it. Now I’m on the cure. They tapered me off last month. They’re building up my system with prosthetics. I’m full of plastic now. But I’ll live.”
“You’ve remarried?” Cassiday asked.
“He split long ago. I’ve been alone five years. Just me and the triline. But now I’m off that stuff.” Beryl blinked laboriously. “You look so relaxed, Dick. But you always were. So calm, so sure of yourself. You’d never get yourself hooked on triline. Hold my hand, will you?”
He touched the withered claw. He felt the warmth come from her, the need for love. Great throbbing waves came lalloping into him, low-frequency pulses of yearning that filtered through him and went booming onward to the watchers far away.
“You once loved me,” Beryl said. “Then we were both silly. Love me again. Help me get back on my feet. I need your strength.”
“Of course I’ll help you,” Cassiday said.
He left her apartment and purchased three cubes of triline. Returning, he activated one of them and pressed it into Beryl’s hand. The green-and-milky eyes roiled in terror.
“No,” she whimpered.
The pain flooding from her shattered soul was exquisite in its intensity. Cassiday accepted the full flood of it. Then she clenched her fist, and the drug entered her metabolism, and she grew peaceful once more.
***
OBSERVE THE NEXT ONE:
with a friend.
The annunciator said, “Mr. Cassiday is here.”
“Let him enter,” replied Mirabel Gunryk Cassiday Milman Reed.
The door-sphincter irised open and Cassiday stepped through, into onyx and marble splendor. Beams of auburn palisander formed a polished wooden framework on which Mirabel lay, and it was obvious that she reveled in the sensation of hard wood against plump flesh. A cascade of crystal-colored hair tumbled to her shoulders. She had been Cassiday’s for sixteen months in 2346 and she had been a slender, timid girl then, but now he could barely detect the outlines of that girl in this pampered mound.
“You’ve married well,” he observed.
“Third time lucky,” Mirabel said. “Sit down? Drink? Shall I adjust the environment?”
“It’s fine.” He remained standing. “You always wanted a mansion, Mirabel. My most intellectual wife, you were, but you had this love of comfort. You’re comfortable now.”
“Very.”
“Happy?”
“I’m comfortable,” Mirabel said. “I don’t read much any more, but I’m comfortable.”
Cassiday noticed what seemed to be a blanket crumpled in her lap—purple with golden threads, soft, idle, clinging close. It had several eyes. Mirabel kept her hands spread over it.
“From Ganymede?” he asked. “A pet?”
“Yes. My husband bought it for me last year. It’s very precious to me.”
“Very precious to anybody. I understand they’re expensive.”
“But lovable,” said Mirabel. “Almost human. Quite devoted. I suppose you’ll think I’m silly, but it’s the most important thing in my life now. More than my husband, even. I love it, you see. I’m accustomed to having others love me, but there aren’t many things that I’ve been able to love.”
“May I see it?” Cassiday said mildly.
“Be careful.”
“Certainly.” He gathered up the Ganymedean creature. Its texture was extraordinary, the softest he had ever encountered. Something fluttered apprehensively within the flat body of the animal. Cassiday detected a parallel wariness coming from Mirabel as he handled her pet. He stroked the creature. It throbbed appreciatively. Bands of iridescence shimmered as it contracted in his hands.
She said, “What are you doing now, Dick? Still working for the spaceline?”
He ignored the question. “Tell me the line from Shakespeare, Mirabel. About flies. The flies and wanton boys.”
Furrows sprouted in her pale brow. “It’s from Lear,” she said. “Wait. Yes. As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.”
“That’s the one,” Cassiday said. His big hands knotted quickly about the blanketlike being from Ganymede. It turned a dull gray, and reedy fibers popped from its ruptured surface. Cassiday dropped it to the floor. The surge of horror and pain and loss that welled from Mirabel nearly stunned him, but he accepted it and transmitted it.
“Flies,” he explained. “Wanton boys. My sport, Mirabel. I’m a god now, did you know that?” His voice was calm and cheerful. “Goodbye. Thank you.”
***
ONE MORE AWAITS THE VISIT:
Swelling with new life.
Lureen Holstein Cassiday, who was thirty-one years old, dark-haired, large-eyed, and seven months pregnant, was the only one of his wives who had not remarried. Her room in New York was small and austere. She had been a plump girl when she had been Cassiday’s two-month wife five years ago, and she was even more plump now, but how much of the access of new meat was the result of the pregnancy Cassiday did not know.
“Will you marry now?” he asked.
Smiling, she shook her head. “I’ve got money, and I value my independence. I wouldn’t let myself get into another deal like the one we had. Not with anyone.”
“And the baby? You’ll have it?”
She nodded savagely. “I worked hard to get it! You think it’s easy? Two years of inseminations! A fortune in fees! Machines poking around in me—all the fertility boosters—oh no, you’ve got the picture wrong. This isn’t an unwanted baby. This is a baby I sweated to have.”
“That’s interesting,” said Cassiday. “I visited Mirabel and Beryl, too, and they each had their babies, too. Of sorts. Mirabel had a little beast from Ganymede. Beryl had a triline addiction that she was very proud of shaking. And you’ve had a baby put in you, without any help from a man. All three of you seeking something. Interesting.”
“Are you all right, Dick?’
“Fine.”
“Your voice is so flat. You’re just unrolling a lot of words. It’s a little frightening.”
“Mmm. Yes. Do you know the kind thing I did for Beryl? I bought her some triline cubes. And I took Mirabel’s pet and wrung its—well, not its neck. I did it very calmly. I was never a passionate man.”
“I think you’ve gone crazy, Dick.”
“I feel your fear. You think I’m going to do something to your baby. Fear is of no interest, Lureen. But sorrow—yes, that’s worth analyzing. Desolation. I want to study it. I want to help them study it. I think it’s what they want to know about. Don’t run from me, Lureen. I don’t want to hurt you, not that way.”
She was small-bodied and not very strong, and unwieldy in her pregnancy. Cassiday seized her gently by both wrists and drew her toward him. Already he could feel the new emotions coming from her, the self-pity behind the terror, and he had not even done anything to her.
How did you abort a fetus two months from term?
A swift kick in the belly might do it. Too crude, too crude. Yet Cassiday had not come armed with abortifacients, a handy ergot pill, a quick-acting spasmic inducer. So he brought his knee up sharply, deploring the crudity of it. Lureen sagged. He kicked her a second time. He remained completely tranquil as he did it, for it would be wrong to take joy in violence. A third kick seemed desirable. Then he released her.
